The novel focuses around the mysterious Vagner family. Henrik Vagner the patriarch of the Vagner family and retired CEO of the Vagner Cooperation hires a defamed journalist/reporter Mikael Blomkvist to wirte a family biography and discover what happened to Henrik’s grandniece, Harriet. Harriett disapeared in 1966, on Sweden’s Hedeby Island, and since then Henrik has been obsessed with discovering what happened to this young girl of 16 who was very much like his own daughter. To compound his grief someone, presumably Harriett’s kidnapper, sends Henrik a framed flower every year on his birthday. Mikael begins his very literal cold case in the dead of Swedish winter.